Paint
by etherealivy
Summary: A simple home-improvement project means much more. (I'm sorry I'm rubbish at summaries.) A vaguely domestic!destiel oneshot set some time after the season eight finale.


Paint

"Green."

"Cas, they're gonna be white."

"But I like green."

Dean sighed as he pushed the orange cart down yet another aisle. The squeaking of the wheels on the waxed linoleum was beginning to grate on his nerves, and Cas's whining wasn't helping the faint ache that was developing just above his right temple. Some of the rooms in the bunker needed work, so he had decided to make a trip to the nearest home improvement store. Cas, of course, had insisted on accompanying him.

"Every other room is white, Cas. Why would we paint the living room walls a different colour?"

"Because green is a nice colour."

"So is white."

"White is boring. I don't like it."

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but thought better of it. He hoped that maybe if he dropped the argument, Cas would forget which colour he wanted by the time they reached the paint aisle.

They stopped in front of a shelf displaying every kind of spackling paste imaginable. There were dents and holes in the living room walls that needed to be repaired before the room could be repainted. Most of the damage had been done before Dean and Sam had discovered the bunker, but the biggest hole had been made by Dean's fist. He couldn't help thinking about the incident as he scoured the shelves for the least expensive product.

_ Ganking shapeshifters had been much easier without an inexperienced, clumsy Angel-turned-human tagging along. Castiel, though he didn't mean to be anything but helpful, kept getting in the way. He and Dean were creeping through a dank underground corridor, silver daggers held out before them, ready to strike at the slightest sign of the shifter. Bare, widely spaced light bulbs hung from the ceiling on rusting chains and twisted wires. The yellow lights flickered, giving their shadows the effect of a stop-motion film being played out on grimy walls. _

_ A soft rustle of fabric was all that warned Dean of the creature approaching from behind. By the time he had turned around, the shifter had already gripped Cas's shoulders and pinned him to a wall. The back of Castiel's head hit the damp cement with a nauseating crack and his eyelids drooped. The dagger slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor._

_ "Cas!" Dean lunged forward, ramming his shoulder into the shifter. The creature stumbled sideways, losing its grip on Castiel, who fell to the ground, a heap of trenchcoat and tangled limbs. _

_ Though he knew he was losing his newly gained upperhand, Dean spared a second to glance at Cas as the shifter regained its balance. He didn't seem responsive. _

_ "You son of a bitch," Dean growled as he turned back to face the shifter. _

_ The creature smirked, "Relax, lover boy, your little boyfriend's only dead. I'm sure that pretty face of yours will get you another one. Actually, maybe I'll take that pretty face and use your body to make more of my kind. What do you think of that?"_

_ "I think you can take your plans and cram 'em up your ass."_

_ Dean sprang at the shapeshifter and knocked it to the ground. He planted his knees on either side of the shifter's waist and plunged the silver dagger deep into its chest, puncturing the heart. The shifter's arms flailed wildly as it tried to reach for Dean's neck in a last effort to kill. Dean leaned all of his weight onto the dagger's hilt, pushing it even further into the shifter's heart. Finally, the creature's body went limp and the remnants of its final feeble breath leaked from its lungs. _

_ Dean pulled the dagger from the corpse and tucked it back inside his jacket as he stood. He could clean the blade later; right now, he had far more important things to deal with. He stepped over the shapeshifter and dropped to his knees as Castiel's side. _

_ He reached out and gentle shook Cas's shoulder. "Cas, come on, you have to wake up." He pressed two fingers to Castiel's neck and was relieved to find a pulse, however faint. He lightly touched the back of Cas's head. It was bleeding more than it should have. _

Shit_._

_ Dean slung Cas's arm around his shoulders. He was surprisingly light without his wings. "Sam!" he called. There was no answer, and Dean assumed that his brother had taken a wrong turn. The tunnels hadn't seemed difficult to navigate while hunting, but now that he was desperate to get Cas back to the bunker to treat his head wounds they seemed like an impossible labyrinth. More than once, he took a turn when he should have stayed straight, and he had to double back. What took fifteen minutes in one direction took almost thirty with Cas sagging against his shoulders. Finally, he saw the rotting wooden steps that would lead him back to the surface, to clean air. _

_ "Dean!"_

_Dean had to shield his eyes from the indifferent sun as he stumbled out of the tunnels. A pair of large hands reached out and lifted away some of Cas's weight. It was Sam. _

_ "Dean, I couldn't find you guys anywhere down there. I wound up back here, and I thought maybe you had already ganked the shifter, but…" he trailed off when he noticed the blood that was staining the neck of Castiel's trenchcoat. "What the hell happened down there?"_

_ They reached the Impala and Sam tried to lay Cas down in the backseat. Dean shook his head and said, "No, you drive. I've gotta keep his head elevated." He climbed into the backseat and rested Cas's head in his lap. He took off his jacket, careful not to jostle the unconscious man, and used it to put pressure on Castiel's wound. It didn't seem to do much. _

_ Sam took the keys and the engine roared to life. They were halfway back to the bunker before either of them spoke. _

_ "What happened, Dean?"_

_ Dean closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the seat. "The shifter snuck up from behind and Cas didn't have a chance to fight back. He got thrown against a wall. Knocked the poor bastard out cold." _

_ "Yeah, I can see that," Sam said, "but did you kill the shifter?"_

_ "No, Sammy, I just let it waltz off after it almost splattered Cas's brains everywhere. Of course I killed the son of a bitch."_

_ By the time they made it to the bunker, Cas was still breathing, but he had lost more blood than Dean cared to think about. The jacket he had been using to stem the flow of blood was soaked through. _

_ Dean and Sam carried Castiel into his room and laid him on the bed. "I need alcohol, a needle, and some thread." Dean said. He sat down next to Cas and began removing the soiled trenchcoat. _

_ Sam returned with a first aid kit, some rags, and a bottle of whiskey. Dean poured the alcohol on a rag and dabbed at the gash on the back of Cas's head, and somehow managed to resist the urge to down the rest of the whiskey. He tried to thread the needle from the first aid kit, but he couldn't seem to hold it steady. _

_ "Sam, I can't-"_

_ Sam took the needle and thread from Dean. He looped the black thread through the needle's eye, and then took out his lighter to sterilise the cold metal. He had recognised the fear in his brother's voice. He had heard it only a few times before, when he or Bobby had been badly injured, and he had hoped never to hear it again._

_ "Dean, you gotta move," Sam said, as gently as he could._

_ "But-"_

_ "You're in the way." He gripped deans arm and pulled him off the bed. _

_ Sam kneeled next to the bed, and raised the needle to Cas's head. _

_ "Be careful!" Dean said. _

_ "Get out, Dean."_

_ "No, I-"  
"Get out!"_

_ Reluctantly, Dean left the room. He paced the hallway for a moment or two before moving to living room to pace some more. The minutes ticked by, and Dean counted every second. He should have been paying closer attention in the tunnels. He shouldn't have let Cas lag behind. _

It's all my fault.

_ "Dean."_

_ Dean turned to face his brother, his expression a mix of fear and concern. "Well?"_

_ "I stitched the wound and cleaned him up, but he's still unconscious. It was a pretty nasty gash, and he lost a hell of a lot of blood. I'm amazed he's still alive."_

_ "He'll be fine."_

_ "Dean, we have to consider the fact that he might _stay_ unconscious."_

_ "Don't, Sam."_

_ "I just think-"_

_ "Goddamn it!" Dean lashed out and punched the wall. His fist sank into the drywall, leaving a gaping hole through which he could see into the kitchen on the other side. He leaned his head against the wall and looked down and his hand. Two of his fingers were stuck at odd angles. He had broken them._

"Dean?"

The sound of Castiel's voice, and the tentative brushing of fingertips on his shoulder pulled Dean away from his memories. It was somewhat shocking to be suddenly reminded that Cas was not comatose in a white-draped bed, but that he was healthy and doing such mundane things as running errands.

"Are you okay? You've been staring at the same tub of spackle for five minutes." Cas said.

"Yeah, Cas, I'm fine." Dean grabbed the container and dumped it into their cart. He pushed the cart down the rest of the aisle, rounded the corner and began making his way up the next one. Here, the walls were lined with strips of brightly coloured paper, advertising hues with oddly whimsical names like "Dovetail Grey" and "Secret Rendezvous". They had found the paint.

Dean headed straight for a shelf that housed cans of more simple colours: blacks, whites, and beiges. He had barely knelt down to grasp the handle of can of "Perfect White" when something dropped into the cart a few inches from his ear. It wasn't the sound of something being thrown into the cart; it was the sound of something being placed quietly into it in an effort to go unnoticed, something that Dean had learned to notice acutely after a number of grocery runs with Sam when they were much younger.

"Found it." Cas said, slipping his hands into his pockets. He looked innocently at the can of paint that he had just set down.

Dean sighed and stood up. He ran a hand over his face and closed his eyes for a moment. Apparently dropping the subject earlier had made Cas think he had won the argument. "Cas, we already talked about this."

"Please, Dean? I really like this colour."

"We're gonna paint it white like every other room."

"Please?"

Dean thought that Castiel sounded like a kid begging for candy, which was, unfortunately, something he had never really been able to deny. He threw his hands in the air and said, "Fine. We'll just paint the damn room," he looked at the label on the paint can, "'Serene Green.'"

He looked at Cas again and raised an eyebrow. "'Serene Green?' Really, Cas? Our lives are anything _but_ serene."

Castiel shrugged.

"Why'd you pick it then?"

Castiel cocked his head to the side and fixed Dean with a look of utmost sincerity and seriousness. Then, as if it were the most natural answer in the world, he said "It's the same colour as your eyes."

Dean felt his lips curl into a small smile, and he quickly suppressed it. Sometimes, even though Cas was walking and talking just as he had before the shapeshifter, Dean thought that he might have some lasting brain damage.


End file.
